Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

Neri wrote:They [perceptions] are direct presentations and not representations, because they occur “here and now” and are not called back as a memory.

Neri, "direct presentations" (and the "here and now") are not possible so long as 'instantaneous' detection/sensing/perceiving (or any 'instantaneous' brain processing) is not possible.

In other words, we can't get from X (the object or event) to the 'experience-of-X' without some passage of time. This passage of time, makes everything that is perceived, old-news; of "there and then" not "here and now".

Furthermore, one cannot 'know' (i.e. recognize) what one perceives (nor even 'know' that perceiving has taken place) without "memory" interaction. Therefore it seems that ALL perceptions are "representations" created through "memory".

Last edited by RJG on January 8th, 2018, 1:09 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

Neri wrote:More importantly, the brain, the vat, the computer as well as all the electrical connections and instruments must have been objects in the real world that caused the perceptions of them by the mysterious person or persons who put together the whole contraption.

In other words, far from proving that there is no real world, the thought experiment starts with the implicit presumption that such a world does in fact exist and is susceptible to the perception of it as it really is. That is, the thought experiment presumes the existence of that which it purports to disprove.

But brain-in-vat, evil demon, argument from dreams: none of that is meant to prove that there is no mind-independent world, but simply to note what things can be called into question as we go to find a foundation for thought (for the foundationalists among us). And yes, none of those scenarios ends with conclusion of absolute skepticism.

I take Searle to be attempting to make direct realism palatable. A+ for creativity?

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

Feel free to just skim over this - it is pushing around 2000 words I think? May be best to skip past most of my look at your "EXAMPLE." I think I just covered ground there you've heard before form me. The latter part has more weight, and I was partly speaking with Asparagus in mind regarding my opposition to Heidegger.

It is hard for me to get past the first point:

(1) Intentionality is that feature of the mind by which it is directed AT, or ABOUT, or OF objects and states of affairs in the world. By the latter expression, Searle means all things whose existence does not depend on being experienced.

The thing is I cannot agree with this definition of "intentionality" as what phenomenology is concerned with. I am not sure if you or Searle said "mind." For now I will assume Searle said "mind" and say this is the fundamental error.

Intentionality is not a "feature of the mind", because the phenomenologist doesn't try to delineate mind from matter in any form whatsoever. There is no "mind" for the phenomenologist accept in the case of the concept of "mind" being an object.

It is hard to get your head around this view I admit. The reason I have been talking about "vision" in particular was to remove it as a principle feature of perception, a feature that is very dominant for congenitally sighted humans.

For this reason I cannot accept this point as having anything to do with phenomenological intentionality. This mistake is further enforced by the appeal of intentional states being "caused by brain processes." Phenomenology does not make an appeal to physical processes directly; indirectly, yes, there is applicability. This is the whole point of "bracketing." It is not to dismiss physical datum, only to not direct investigation DIRECTLY upon ideas of what is or is not physically objective.

point (4), you can probably see, makes absolutely no sense in phenomenological terms if applied to ideas of physically objectivity.

Your/Searle's example:

EXAMPLE: If I see a man before me, the content is that there is a man before me. The object is the man himself. If I am having a corresponding hallucination, the experience has a content, but no object--even though the content can be the same in both cases. The presence of a content does not necessarily mean that there must be an object.

This is wrong. Phenomenologically you would not "see" a man "before" you. There is phenomenon on your horizon of being from which intentionality adumbrates and reveals a kinaesthetic (a wholeness - for common understanding probably easier to say "bodily felt") item which is palpable, useable and there to be discovered through interactions ... this is incredibly hard to describe!

The above example you give is Kantian. Kant says in order to have any experience we must have somethin in place in order to process the experience. There is no "a priori", no knowledge before experience, because experience is necessary for what we understand as "knowledge." There most certainly must be something that allows experience to be known, something that allows experience to be experience. This is the reductionist approach and can uncover many interesting objective facts, but it can never reveal the actual "experience" in a felt way, only through mechanisms of biology can we gain some understanding of the internal processes.

Phenomenology is about looking at the subjective appreciation. You are not born "knowing" anything (well you are, so let us say that at some prenatal stage you don't "know" anything), yet you are equipped with biological functions and before you "see" a face you recognize it. This is because newborns have bodily mapping (this would be the "kinaesthetic" I was clumsily trying to refer to above.) What I am not doing is making a direct appeal to what is objective physicalism, I am merely showing that what we "see" is not what we "see", it is what we know. We know a face because we have a face, we understand certain sensible groupings because we possess them. The intentionality is the reconciliation of the subject and its adumbration of existence. Objects, in the physicalist sense, are brought into play in order to further explore the wholeness of existence - and a certain natural flow (basically entropy) is the underlying unknown. Given that life is a very peculiar thing in that it, from our limited perspective, seems to guard against entropy by creating homeostasis to some workable degree. Such investigations then move towards physics.

Phenomenology is concerned with consciousness. Phenomenology limits itself, as any category of knowledge must. The limit of phenomenology is set out by its concern with the subjective nature of consciousness.

The phenomenologist does not assume the physicality of "the man before them" nor do they imagine that the "man before them" is imaginary. Neither of these points are of direct concern to the phenomenologist, they are not within the limitations set out by the phenomenological investigation. The concern is purely aimed at what it is about the phenomenon apparent/concrete/imagined that makes it a phenomenon. It is from here that it gets deeply confusing and if you're not careful you can slip into semantic confusions and begin to conflate words in a vain attempt to refine the idea more precisely - enter Heidegger and the whole field of philosophical hermeneutics.

What Husserl released, I believe, is what appeals to me. The processes of "knowing" and "thinking" is wrapped up in verbosity. The words themselves are adumbrations given weight through intersubjectivity. This does not make words useless (only a fool would say such a thing.) But what it does reveal, by not being able to reveal, is that "prior" to words a kind of "knowledge" was present in the conscious being, and we do experience the "world" every moment without the need for a running verbal commentary. Because we don't pull in the full experience of the moment into one "item" which we can use as a tool we do not have intentionality of such an item, because it is a non-item (such a thought would be to jump into the infinite reductionism of the homunculi idea.) But given that we're not talking about some "physical core" or some "physical principle" of consciousness, phenomenology is not bothered by such thoughts directly.

The post modernist and hermeneutic fields have been so popular because they are touching on something that was brought about by Husserl's phenomenological disposition. Sadly they became enthralled and fixated upon the tool of verbal language, which is no wonder considering its immense force in the political sphere. And the fact that is necessarily encourages willful freefall.

I see the above movements as being part and parcel of the pathway beyond the natural political functioning of language. I believe that once we learn how to better "look" beyond language, to not register "knowledge" as only being a verbal item, then we'll make better headway into the phenomenological investigation. The only discernable way I can see this happening is through extreme advances in cognitive neuroscience and how education will function alongside technological advances in this area.

As powerful as words are they are still deeply one dimensional compared to the richness of experience. The post modernist plan is to basically issue orders on what words to say and therefore reconstruct thought. In various fields of investigation and human endeavor these rules and laws of language are enforced - we generally call this "jargon". Science refines language to suit its needs and art to suit its needs. In political discourse and law other rules and uses of worded discourse are adhered to too.

In the above respect I would say that the phenomenological investigation is best suited to cognitive neurosciences and "art"; art because it appeals more to emotional exploration than delineations of physical rules. It is a art that allows us to open up to more ambiguous thoughts, feelings and emotions without being told what to think - it is in more literate areas where art makes a certain crossover; it is this particular area that likely gained such appeal to the post modernist historians and literary theory. Again, this would stem from the initial step taken by Husserl and the successful attempt of Heidegger to derail it (consciously or not.)

The destruction of the appeal of post modernist views will likely lead to either a new found appeal in the primary phenomenological investigation, or something entirely different that will flow from the phenomenology ideas evolution.

next points (I'll try and be more brief!)

(5) Intentional states typically fit the world with one or two directions of fit.

(6) Perceptions are supposed to fit how the world is. They have a mind-to-world direction of fit.

(7) A perception will either match or fail to match the world. In such case the intentional state is either satisfied or not satisfied.

(5) Intentional states have no direction or care for this or that. It is likely here that you may understand, if you didn't already, what is mean t by "directedness." There is no literal direction, because in a dream state such an idea serves no purpose other than as a reference. This is why terms like "about" and "adumbrate" are used. We understand "direction" as a physical "over there" idea, but we are well acquainted to the colloquial use of "forward thinking" and such things. It is in this vain that "direction" is used in the phenomenology sense, because it does not appeal to physical "here" or "there", to "internal" or "external." This is the only step Husserl made and one which Heidegger took a whole lot further, with people like Derrida and Foucault following in his wake.

(6) You can probably see how this make no sense for a phenomenological investigation. There is no "mind." I guess it is fair to say that in these terms "mind" is equivalent to "phenomenon", but even that is a warped stretch on my part!

(7) I don't quite see how a perception will "match or fail"? For the physicalist bias we can of course say that I may be deluded or fooled by a certain experience and then come to disregard my intial analysis - that is nothing to do with phenomenology though. Phenomenology is concerned with the "directedness" and about what I have previously outlined (the "moments" and "parts".) Physicality is concerned with only "parts" of the phenomenon, whilst phenomenology reveals the underlying items of investigation that the objective perspective cannot so easily cope with, the moments of experience are not measureable in any way other than thorugh their obviousness as being necessary for experience. A table not occupying any space is not a table, but being able to remove the leg of the table doesn't make the table not exist - what is more of concern with the removal of the table leg for the phenomenologist is that the "object" of table is not removed, but by taking away a leg some "moment" is removed because the functionality has shifted - the table has become "broken" or "ill-fitted" within the phenomenological horizon. If you follow that you can then perhaps see the wide ranging field opened up here? The issue with Heidegger is that he became fixated upon the interplay of words and covered up the phenomenon with language.

As an analogy of why I am often so brutal about Heidegger, it is because I see him as the describer of a painting, the critique casting out aspersions about a painting, yet being wholly unable to capture the painting within the words he writes. It is a case of "a picture paints a thousands words", and phenomenon is endlessly open to reiteration. Husserl is concerned with the phenomenon and Heidegger is concerned with the explanation of phenomenon as being the pheonomenon (as the worded description meaning more than the phenomenon - to which there is certainly something to be said!)

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

If I think about a piano, something in my thought picks out a piano. If I talk about cigars, something in my speech refers to cigars. This feature of thoughts and words, whereby they pick out, refer to, or are about things, is intentionality. In a word, intentionality is aboutness.

Many mental states exhibit intentionality. If I believe that the weather is rainy today, this belief of mine is about today’s weather—that it is rainy. Desires are similarly directed at, or about things: if I desire a mosquito to buzz off, my desire is directed at the mosquito, and the possibility that it depart. Imaginings seem to be directed at particular imaginary scenarios, while regrets are directed at events or objects in the past, as are memories. And perceptions seem to be, similarly, directed at or about the objects we perceptually encounter in our environment. We call mental states that are directed at things in this way ‘intentional states’.

The major role played by intentionality in affairs of the mind led Brentano (1884) to regard intentionality as “the mark of the mental”; a necessary and sufficient condition for mentality. But some non-mental phenomena seem to display intentionality too—pictures, signposts, and words, for example. Nevertheless, the intentionality of these phenomena seems to be derived from the intentionality of the mind that produces them. A sound is only a word if it has been conferred with meaning by the intentions of a speaker or perhaps a community of speakers; while a painting, however abstract, seems only to have a subject matter insofar as its painter intends it to. Whether or not all mental phenomena are intentional, then, it certainly seems to be the case that all intentional phenomena are mental in origin.

The root of the word ‘intentionality’ reflects the notion that it expresses, deriving from the Latin intentio, meaning ‘directed at’. Intentionality has been studied since antiquity and has generated numerous debates that can be broadly categorized into three areas that are discussed in the following sections:

The article, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy continues here:

The key to understanding this, for me, is that last bit about not all mental phenomena are intentional, but all intentional phenomena are mental in origin. There is no "aboutness" except as our minds turn the spotlight of awareness towards something. Phenomenology seems to me, in its rather meditative stance, to be about the process of awareness rather than its physicalist causal picture - it is the brain "seen from the inside" rather than the exterior. It is about what it's like to see red, not about the objective report of "C-fibers firing in the occipital region" or whatever. Reductionism is never complete, as Mr Jelly notes.

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

The section on descriptivist vs. causal accounts of intentionality was pretty helpful. Shows how Kripke, Searle, and Putnam offered a path away from the problems of descriptivism. Gets into the classic Hesperus or Phosphorus example, as well as some others that really clarify, like the Twin Earth example, where residents have something they call water that is not, in its chemistry, actually water. A really good read, which I found more accessible than SEP.

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

A lot of this gets difficult to handle because we live in a tradition of "mind" and "body" ideas that have prevailed all the way from Descartes. In everything I've read of Husserl I cannot remember him using the term "mind" once, and flicking through "Crisis" just now I cannot see the word "mind" used once - there is a reason for this, it is not simply an accident. I find this to be more than the difficulty of translating from German.

From the quote above I guess you can see where the whole hermeneutic movement sprouted from leading to Heidegger, Derrida and Foucault taking up the race in a completely tangential pursuit - the birth of post modernism.

The gist of what Husserl would say would be that there is no object out there. There is phenomenon and said phenomenon is experienced due to intentionality, and from intentionality the object is known as "an object." The question of "where the phenomenon comes from" is a fallacy produced mainly; in my view, by the trap the post modernists fell into, the trap of articulation of the phenomenon into narrative form with words. The compartmentalization of experience into words allows us to approach phenomenon as if "from a distance" it is without doubt an extraordinary achievement, and once writing was developed to compliment the spoken word yet another explosion of human culture began.

Husserl was not partaking, as it says on that site, in a "philosophy of the mind" his aim was to establish a "science of consciousness." Phenomenology is NOT a philosophy of the mind.

If we return to the point elsewhere about the "stick in the water," there is an anticipation of what is expected, the expectation is the intentional-horizon. When anticipations are not met, and expectations are turned upside down, the object, as Husserl liked to put it, "explodes." If this doesn't do a reasonably good job of opening you up to the idea that "objects" are not "things-in-themselves" then I don't know what will. For if what you regard as an object can dissolve before you surely you can appreciate the "object" as a process of consciousness rather than as some external and unreachable "thing" in an "out there" sense. And I know this sounds like pure solipsism.

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

No, but it sounds like something difficult for the western mind to grasp. I really appreciate your continued efforts to illuminated phenomenology, and will keep chipping away, as time permits. The distinction between "mind" and "conscicousness" is helpful, as those two terms often tended to be treated as synonyms when they shouldn't be. Mind is another one of those tricky, fuzzy umbrella terms that really need to be confronted.

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

Here is Searle’s refutation of phenomenalism in his own words. In the interests of brevity and simplicity, I have left out his extensive technical arguments.

“Phenomenalism has such a long tradition, and it is so implausible, that it is hard for me to understand how so many brilliant philosophers could have taken it so seriously for so long. The idea is that all we perceive are sense data, but somehow that is all that there is to the world anyway, the actual sense data that we do perceive and the possible sense data that we could perceive.”(Searle, ibid. p. 226 et seq.)

“There are so many objections to this theory that one does not know where to start in refuting it, but the basic problem is that it reduces the public ontologically objective world to a set of private ontologically subjective phenomena. The aim of the philosophical analysis of perception is to analyze our ordinary and scientific sense of what it is to talk about perceiving objects and states of affairs in the world, and the phenomenalist-idealist analysis has the result that all such talk is really about ontological subjectivity. But that means that if the project was to account for our ordinary ways of thinking and talking, it fails. Well, what is wrong with saying that it fails, that all that exists are really private experiences in your mind and in other people’s minds? The answer is that this results in solipsism. Now it turns out that the only phenomenon in the world that makes sense for me to talk about is my own experiences. If you have experiences, I could never know, because I could never experience them, and indeed, if you exist, you must be reducible to my experiences.”

“…I have to say that what bothers me about Phenomenalism and the Representative Theory is not some technical problem that they have, but their sheer preposterousness. They both have the consequence that you never actually see independently existing objects and states of affairs in the world; rather, all you can ever see are your own experiences. This is not because of some epistemic worry that we might have—maybe we are hallucinating, being deceived by evil demons, brains in vats, etc.—but rather because even if everything is going perfectly, all you ever see is your own experiences. Strictly speaking, you cannot even say that what you see is in the head, because of course the head is reducible to sets of experiences.”

“I do not see how the phenomenalist can avoid the charge that the doctrine is implicitly solipsistic. That seems to me the decisive objection to the phenomenalist analysis. The objective ontology of the real world is eliminated in favor of the subjective ontology of sense data. And because sense data are ontologically subjective, they are always in the minds of individual human subjects. But that means that I have no access to your sense data and you have no access to mine. If the meaning of a statement is its method of verification and the method of verification reduces all of my empirical statements to my experiences, then the meaning of those statements is solipsistic. Solipsism is a reductio ad absurdum of any theory.”

“The real objection is that the theory just seems to be inadequate to our own experiences. It is just a fact about our experiences that they reach right out to independently existing objects and states of affairs in the world. Furthermore, the object and state of affairs that they reach out to are in a publicly accessible world: You and I see exactly the same object. Neither of these claims can be accommodated within the phenomenalist tradition. On their view, all we ever see are sense data and sense data are essentially private."

“So, my objection to all of these theories based on the Bad Argument is that they leave us with essentially an unbelievable conception of our relation to the world.”

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

Thanks! That clears up one thing for sure. Searle has no idea what phenomenology is. Theory? It is a position not a proposition about the state of reality? It is, in its origin, the science of consciousness.

I find it comical that he seems to view it as a theory of reality? Are these really his words? Just because something is concerned with subjective experience it doesn't make in solipsism. I am more than a little shocked.

Biv -

The problem I think people have with phenomenology is assuming there is any real concern over theory of mind. There is no concern about this in phenomenology. Husserl clearly says that Descartes and Plato were the two people before him that were taking a phenomenological position (at least the start of it.)

The whole mind body dichotomy most of (I believe?) take to be a complete fallacy. Yet instead of reclaiming the initial problem of the distinction we make between thought and brain the physicalist claim is to replace all ideas of "spirit" or "mind" by calling it "emergence" and continuing, in vain, with the idea that everything is objectively known.

Plato touched on it first of all with the thought about ideal forms, and then we had Descartes - a necessary break that allowed science to flourish.

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

Searle via Neri wrote:...you never actually see independently existing objects and states of affairs in the world; rather, all you can ever see are your own experiences.

...even if everything is going perfectly, all you ever see is your own experiences. Strictly speaking, you cannot even say that what you see is in the head, because of course the head is reducible to sets of experiences.

Bingo! EVERYTHING that we experience (hint hint) is... just another damn 'experience'!

Searle via Neri wrote:The objective ontology of the real world is eliminated in favor of the subjective ontology of sense data.

Not so. It is not that objectivity is "eliminated", it is that it just can't be 'known' through subjectivity. In other words, just because we can't get objectivity from subjectivity, does not mean that objectivity does not exist, nor cannot be known.

Conscious-experience-of-X (aka "consciousness") --- the experience of 'recognition' of said bodily reaction (...made possible by memory).

This also means that "we" are just (monistic) blobs of reactive material. We blobs experience and auto-react accordingly (...just like every other entity in this universe!). There is no "mind" nor "agent within" that dictate the actions of the body. Each and every thought, feeling, sensation, and action, is just another 'bodily reaction'; i.e. "just another damn experience!".

Many will automatically reject this view based solely on its 'ugliness', ...but since when did 'ugliness' (or the lack thereof) become a prerequisite of truth???

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

BadgerJelly wrote:For if what you regard as an object can dissolve before you surely you can appreciate the "object" as a process of consciousness rather than as some external and unreachable "thing" in an "out there" sense. And I know this sounds like pure solipsism.

BadgerJelly wrote:Just because something is concerned with subjective experience it doesn't make it solipsism.

I am confused. Is phenomenology (as I had thought) simply unconcerned with real objects, or does it positively deny their existence?

If phenomenology is simply a detailed analysis of the contents of consciousness, then I don't think anyone could object to it (though people may have differing opinions about its usefulness, or whether it is 'scientific' or not). However, to deny the existence of the world "out there" does indeed sound like solipsism or idealism.

Of course, realism about the existence of the universe still leaves room for argument about the reality of particular "objects" (e.g. photons), or the classification and quantification of objects (as a "one" or a "many"). But that is a different matter from denying the reality of the universe as a whole.

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

I am confused. Is phenomenology (as I had thought) simply unconcerned with real objects, or does it positively deny their existence?

Unconcerned. Husserl uses the term "object" in a different way - meaning he doesn't bother to distinguish between what is imagined and what is sensible other than through intentionality.

The concern would not be with the object, but with what it is about the experience of an object that makes it an object. Science deals with the physical structure and phenomenology tries to look at the subjective perspective as best it can rather than concern itself with the intersubjective (objective) take on the world.

Something that many people latched onto was language. This is because even when I am composing this in my head right now and typing it out I am not really selecting each word as an object. I am, through writing, articulating what the world I am about is to myself and expressing and exploring it.

It can be very useful to look at how language is structured by analyzing it. The theme of language has been a very popular one for many people drawn to phenomenology.

I am very puzzled by the quote Neri has offered from Searle. It looks very much like what Searle is talking about shares little in common with what I know as phenomenology.

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

BadgerJelly » January 13th, 2018, 3:52 am wrote:I am very puzzled by the quote Neri has offered from Searle. It looks very much like what Searle is talking about shares little in common with what I know as phenomenology.

I see that Neri and Searle are referring to phenomenalism, which is quite distinct from phenomenology.

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

Tom Sparrow sets forth the fundamental antirealism of phenomenology is the clearest terms.

"Phenomenology forsakes metaphysical realism in favor of a timid “realism” of phenomena that is nothing more than a modified version of idealism, Kantianism by another name. It is commonplace, as I will show in the following chapter, for phenomenologists to pay homage to realism, but not without qualifying their allegiance with scare quotes. What they call the “real” or “realism” is what is given in “concrete” lived experience. To speak of concrete experience, then, amounts to speaking about the real as it appears to a human observer, not as the real is in itself.”

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

Asperagus wrote:Suppose you tell me that physicality is a property of every thing. What are you telling me? What does that mean?

Why would I tell you that?

When I say "physicality", I am referring to 'matter' or the 'body' as opposed to the 'mind'. I am referring to reactive matter; the thing in itself; the noumena; that has its own set of properties, and that which auto-reacts when in contact/colliding with other real objects.

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

Asperagus wrote:The claim of underdetermination says that we have to determine what monistic physicalism is before we worry about whether or not it's possible.

Are you implying that "dualism" or "monistic idealism" is somehow less underdetermined?

For which of these three views is the least "underdetermined"?? -- I suspect "monistic physicalism", as the other two seemingly imply a 'magicalness' which is impossible to rationally define/determine.

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

Asperagus wrote:The claim of underdetermination says that we have to determine what monistic physicalism is before we worry about whether or not it's possible.

Are you implying that "dualism" or "monistic idealism" is somehow less underdetermined?

For which of these three views is the least "underdetermined"?? -- I suspect "monistic physicalism", as the other two seemingly imply a 'magicalness' which is impossible to rationally define/determine.

Monistic idealism is indeed underdetermined. How about neutral monism?

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

Asperagus wrote:Monistic idealism is indeed underdetermined. How about neutral monism?

From my understanding, neutral monism still requires a belief in 'magic' to explain it.

Whereas, I can comprehend a logical 'physical' explanation for conscious experiences, ...in other words, there is no 'magic' needed to get from point A (physical reality) to point B (conscious experiences).

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

I just noticed your comment regarding the meaning of Searle’s “here and now” and your objection to it. In a way, both of you are right and wrong.

As I have long maintained, there is no way to establish a temporal point, such as “now,” “beginning and end,” “high noon” and the like.

Such things can be objectified to a degree by the use of timing devices. However, what a particular time may be is no more than a matter of agreement and estimate.

The temporal point cannot be objectivised in the real world, for such a point is conceived of as having no duration whatever. Indeed, a thing that exists for no time at all does not exist. The temporal point exists in the mind and not in the real world.

Further, I have always taken the position that any conscious experience, including perception, cannot be had without an expense of time, however imperfectly estimated.

The mind reflects the continuous transitions of the world, and consciousness itself is in continuous transition. Indeed, consciousness itself is nothing more than a kind of memory.

Perception gauges the continuous flow of reality through memory. Without memory, one would forget the earlier aspects of a perception by the time he got to the later ones. Indeed, without memory, I would forget the beginning of this sentence by the time I got to the end.

But, what do people mean when they say something is happening “here and now”? They cannot mean it happens with absolutely no expense of time, for that would mean that nothing really happens. Indeed, nothing can occur in an unextended present with no spillover into either the past or future.

By saying that an even is “occurring right before my eyes” or “here and now,” one means:

(1) That, for one reason or another, one has focused on some local aspect of the continuous happenings that constitute the real world.

(2) The inception of one’s focus becomes the “beginning” of “now,” for “now” must be an undetermined interval and not an instant.

(3) When one loses focus on an event either because he can no longer perceive its progress or losses interest, he says the event has ended.

(4) Hence, his “here and now” is the variable and underdetermined interval during which one is in the actual process of perceiving the event to which his attention has been drawn. It is neither an instant not a perfect interval. It has a subjective and not an objective ontology.

(5) The past consists of memories of events when they are no longer in the actual process of being perceived.

(6) The future is the name given to events that are not yet capable of being perceived. The expression “yet” in this context refers to the fundamental distinction between the potential and the actual.

Now, it is true that there is an exceeding brief lag time between the reflected light from an event energizing one’s retina and his conscious experience of that event.

However, an experience once established, remains continuous until one loses focus. Further, that experience reflects what is actually happening in the real world in the sequence that it happens there--with only a slight temporal displacement in the mind. It is the very being in the process of perceiving an event in the real world that one calls “here and now.”

Further, the progress of the perception is near enough to the progress of the real event for one to take appropriate action to avoid danger should the circumstances require it.

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

Neri wrote:I just noticed your comment regarding the meaning of Searle’s “here and now” and your objection to it. In a way, both of you are right and wrong.

As I have long maintained, there is no way to establish a temporal point, such as “now,” “beginning and end,” “high noon” and the like.

Such things can be objectified to a degree by the use of timing devices. However, what a particular time may be is no more than a matter of agreement and estimate.

The temporal point cannot be objectivised in the real world, for such a point is conceived of as having no duration whatever. Indeed, a thing that exists for no time at all does not exist. The temporal point exists in the mind and not in the real world.

Further, I have always taken the position that any conscious experience, including perception, cannot be had without an expense of time, however imperfectly estimated.

I don't disagree with any of this. But this "expense of time" seemingly refers only to the 'duration' of a 'now' moment, ...and not to its 'out-of-syncness' with reality (i.e. CTD)

The 'now' that we are conscious of, and the 'now' of reality, are TWO different 'nows', ...one lags the other.

Neri wrote:The mind reflects the continuous transitions of the world, and consciousness itself is in continuous transition. Indeed, consciousness itself is nothing more than a kind of memory.

Perception gauges the continuous flow of reality through memory. Without memory, one would forget the earlier aspects of a perception by the time he got to the later ones. Indeed, without memory, I would forget the beginning of this sentence by the time I got to the end.

Agreed. But not only is memory needed as you say here, but further memory processing is needed to 'make sense' of (to 'recognize') each scribble mark (alpha-character) and the combination of these scribble marks into meaningful (recognizable) words, phrases, and sentences.

One needs to first 'recognize' their experiences before they can claim to knowingly 'perceive' them. ...and this recognition process itself consumes time, such that by the time one becomes conscious of what was the 'present', it has now become the 'past'!

We are blind to the 'present now' of reality. We can never be conscious of the 'present', as we only have a conscious view of the 'past'.

Neri wrote:But, what do people mean when they say something is happening “here and now”? They cannot mean it happens with absolutely no expense of time, for that would mean that nothing really happens. Indeed, nothing can occur in an unextended present with no spillover into either the past or future.

Agreed, and again, this "expense of time" only refers to the "duration" of a 'now' moment.

Neri wrote:By saying that an event is “occurring right before my eyes” or “here and now,” one means:

(1) That, for one reason or another, one has focused on some local aspect of the continuous happenings that constitute the real world.

(2) The inception of one’s focus becomes the “beginning” of “now,” for “now” must be an undetermined interval and not an instant.

(3) When one loses focus on an event either because he can no longer perceive its progress or losses interest, he says the event has ended.

(4) Hence, his “here and now” is the variable and underdetermined interval during which one is in the actual process of perceiving the event to which his attention has been drawn. It is neither an instant not a perfect interval. It has a subjective and not an objective ontology.

(5) The past consists of memories of events when they are no longer in the actual process of being perceived.

(6) The future is the name given to events that are not yet capable of being perceived. The expression “yet” in this context refers to the fundamental distinction between the potential and the actual.

Yes, but this is just the "here and now" of consciousness, not the "here and now" of the real world (reality).

The "here and now" of consciousness, lags (is out-of-sync with) the "here and now" of reality.So, when one says "here and now", which one are they referring to?

Neri wrote:Now, it is true that there is an exceeding brief lag time between the reflected light from an event energizing one’s retina and his conscious experience of that event.

You seem to be downplaying the amount of time involved in our conscious time delay (CTD). Yes, the 'transmission' delay (distance from object to optic nerve / speed of light) is a very small time delay. But don't forget the other two CTD time delays ('translation' and 'recognition') involved in one's conscious realization of an event happening in reality.

Note: It is not necessarily the amount of the time delay that really matters here. It is the realization of the time delay itself, and its effect on our understanding of “now”.

That which we (consciously) perceive as "now" is really (in reality) "then"!

Neri wrote:Further, the progress of the perception is near enough to the progress of the real event for one to take appropriate action to avoid danger should the circumstances require it.

Not so. You seem to imply that we have the ability to consciously "take action". If a time delay exists (i.e. CTD), then consciously doing anything or taking action is impossible. We can only be conscious of what we've done (in the past), and not what we do (in the present).

Again, we can never be conscious of the 'present'. We only have a conscious view of the 'past'. And there is nothing that we can do in the present to change the past!

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

What you have failed to comprehend is that the present and the past have a subjective and not an objective ontology for the various reasons I have set forth [which I do not intend to repeat]. There is no absolute present, and no present has a greater claim to reality than any other present.

Do you really believe that if I pointed a gun at you and pulled the trigger that you would be any less dead because the bullet struck your chest a few milliseconds before I saw the impact? I hardly think so.

It takes very little reflection to realize that if our senses did not give us a true account of reality, we would have long since perished as a species.

You are making stuff up. Where did I say 'our senses are rendered useless"? Please condemn my 'actual' words, and not those of your strawman.

Everything that we are 'presently' conscious of is a 'past' event. Is this true or not? Please answer this.

And if you agree that this is true, then it comes with logical implications, ...agreed? And if these logical implications are 'ugly', then what do we do? …do we automatically disqualify/reject these based on its ugliness? ...or do we just say "so be it" (...maybe along with our favorite curse word),

This is a 'philosophy' forum here, ...right?? Emotions (and likes/dislikes) should have no bearing on truthfulness, and the discussions of such.

Neri wrote:Do you really believe that if I pointed a gun at you and pulled the trigger that you would be any less dead because the bullet struck your chest a few milliseconds before I saw the impact? I hardly think so.

Neri wrote:It takes very little reflection to realize that if our senses did not give us a true account of reality, we would have long since perished as a species.

Again, where are my quoted words that are attributed to this strawman comment?

Neri, I realize that the words I say, paint an ugly (possibly psychologically unacceptable) view of reality, and it is this 'ugliness' that seemingly causes automatic rejection, and the dislike of me as the author of these ugly words. But again, since when did 'ugliness' become a qualifier (or disqualifier) of truthfulness?

Re: Searle and the Intentionality of Perception

If you now say that the senses do provide accurate information about the real world and do allow us to avoid the danger of injury or death, then the time lag you refer to must be of little or no significance.

Of course, avoiding danger involves taking action of some sort. Hence, I take it you have now abandoned the foolish notion that a so-called time lag proscribes human action of any sort.

You need to consider the possibility that you do not know what you are talking about. Because I believe that this is the case, I will make no further comment on your posts.